The Road Not Taken
by UA
Summary: What if you could take scenes from the show's past, spin them in different directions, take the road not taken?  Here's your chance.  First ficlet is Sheridan/Luis, additional ficlets could be anyone you want them to be.  :   Rating subject to change.


_The Road Not Taken_

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**Disclaimer**: I don't own the characters of Luis, Sheridan, or any other recognizable here. They belong to JER and NBC (maybe it's DirectTV, dunno). I'm not making any money from this either, which totally sucks.

**Author's notes**: This is one of my crazy ideas-I actually posted this little ficlet a while back at another site. The basic gist behind this story: take different scenes from the show's past and spin them in other directions-the road not taken. :) When I originally posted this, it came about because I was thinking about how much I missed the good ole days of Passions—and the days when this site and the other boards I visit were flooded with pages and pages of fic (particularly Sheridan/Luis fic) that I devoured every chance I got—and was reminded again how many different, better directions JERk could have gone with this show, loaded with potential as it was.

Any similarities to any previously written fics, Sheridan/Luis or otherwise, are strictly unintentional. Thought I should mention that since this first fic deals with Sheridan and Luis and New Mexico—a storyline from the show's first year on the air. Forgive me for any inaccuracies, seeing as it's been 8, 9 years (omg), and I got rid of my tapes ages ago.

I'm going to take a guess and say this one's rated PG-13. You be the judge.

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"Sheridan!"

Water stings his eyes, chokes his throat, roars in his ears as it swirls and rushes violently around him. His clothes feel heavy and cumbersome around his limbs, and he fights to keep his head above the torrent, his brown eyes searching frantically for her figure.

"Sheridan!"

In every direction he turns, the rain falls in sheets. It's like trying to make out a shape behind frosted gloss. Everything's blurred and distorted, and the raindrops pound like sharp, cold needles against his shoulders. This is impossible. This is crazy. This is all her damn fault. The thought angers him even as he feels a dull ache grab hold in his chest and refuse let go. He opens his mouth to cry her name again, only to have it swallowed up by the storm that rages around him, and that's when he sees it.

Sees her.

* * *

His lungs are burning and a deep cold spikes his veins as he pulls her to the bank, but it's nothing compared to the icy cold he feels as he fumbles with clumsy fingers to find a pulse at her neck.

Sheridan is still, her clothes heavy and wet and clinging, and no breath stirs from her blue lips. Mud smears her chin as he lifts it with his fingers and pinches her nose shut to breathe life back into her, and for a few more agonizing minutes, she stays true to her stubborn self, refusing to follow Luis's direction and just breathe, dammit!

When finally she takes a gasping breath, choking up river water and blinking up at him with those blue eyes of hers, Luis can't stop the promises from spilling from his lips as he cradles her close and struggles to his feet.

* * *

She's delirious by the time they reach the cabin, babbling nonsense behind chattering teeth and shivering hard. Her skin still has a ghostly cast to it and her wet hair falls into eyes that are feverish and bright.

She'll freeze to death, he realizes, if he doesn't do something. There's only a minute shaking in his hands as he undresses her and soothes her delirious fears, and he keeps his eyes on her face, over her shoulder, anywhere but the too-cold skin he exposes as he does what he must. Finally, he covers her with a thick, musty-smelling blanket, tucking the corners tightly around her shoulders and promises not to stray too far. Keeping a watchful eye on her, he prepares a crackling fire with chilled fingers and wonders how he ended up here, in this moment.

She lapses into a fitful sleep and dreams of rain, danger, hands stained with red, and the man that would save her from it all.

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"Are you him? Are you the great love of my life?"

Luis frowns, worry gnawing at his gut as his eyes flit over her and his fingers gently probe for evidence of a head injury under the guise of smoothing her hair back from her flushed face. "It's me, Sheridan. Luis," he reminds her, but she pays no heed to him, her voice a strangled whisper as she tells him of a dream she's always had and wonders once more if he's the man she's always dreamed of. He lets her thread her fingers through his, but when she kisses him, he ignores his baser instincts and firmly pushes her away, even as the heartbreak in her eyes tugs at some forgotten corner of his heart.

"Am I not good enough for you?"

Her eyes glitter at Luis in the firelight then fill with shame, and she isn't making sense, but she's crying and burning up and muttering about something she did in the past, and the voice in the back of Luis's mind, the little voice that makes him so good at his job, so tenacious and thorough in an investigation, won't be quieted. "The past? Sheridan, what happened in the past?"

But she's gone, delirious with fever and moving restlessly beneath the blanket, her skin scorching beneath his fingertips.

Then the wind picks up outside and the rain seems to pound and rattle the windowpanes. Before he knows it, frigid air fills the cabin and a thin curl of smoke is all that remains of the fire, now ashes and soggy wet kindling. Cursing beneath his breath as his eyes travel from the fireplace to the unconscious woman beside him, Luis feels the cold he's ignored for the last hour take hold and settle in his bones and knows he must think fast or they'll both die of hypothermia.

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They're lying face to face beneath the blanket, so close Luis can see the fragile network of veins beneath Sheridan's skin as he studies her face. She's still burning hot, and at the back of his mind, he's aware that he's shivering just slightly, but he can't bring himself to breach the few inches that prevent them from pressing skin to bare skin.

Sheridan moans and shifts in her sleep and her hands push fretfully at the covers. Sweat beads her brow as she sits up, her blue eyes wild as she searches the room, lost in some distant memory of the past as she cries plaintively. "I didn't mean to do it."

"Sheridan," Luis tries to lay a calming hand on her arm, but she's moving again, and the covers are bunching at her waist. His eyes betray him and flicker briefly across the skin exposed to the unforgiving cold of the cabin—she's more beautiful than he ever let himself imagine—before he's finally spurred into action. One arm snags around her waist while the other wraps across her shoulders just above her collarbone, and he's dragging her back down in the bedding beside him, holding her tightly and resting his cheek against her feverish one. "Shh," he murmurs into her ear until she ceases struggling in his arms, relaxing by slow increments.

"I didn't mean to do it," she repeats, voice trembling and small, like that of a child.

She sounds so forlorn and so sincere, Luis believes her, on nothing more than instinct, despite the fact that she's a Crane and despite her questionable motives for accompanying him on this quest for answers about his father. He whispers to her and presses his lips against her satin skin words he thought he'd never utter. "I know. S'okay, Sheridan. I believe you." Without realizing he's doing it, he punctuates the statement with another kiss to her cheek and tightens his arms around her, praying for morning and her fever to break soon.

Gradually, Sheridan's breath evens out, and she sleeps.

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She wakes, draped across his chest, one long, smooth leg thrown across both of his. She's still warm, but the worst of the fever is over, and she's conscious of the strong, supple body beneath her and the man it belongs to. And she remembers. She remembers Luis saving her.

Luis wakes too, but his return to consciousness is more gradual. At first the only thing he is aware of is warmth. No more of the bitter, bone aching cold he'd thought he'd never shake. As one minute bleeds into the next, he realizes the rain is no longer relentlessly assailing the windowpanes or the rooftop. The beat is still steady, but the force behind it has lessened, and the rhythmic sound has taken on a lulling effect. He's relaxed, and he hasn't been relaxed since before…The thought leaves him, vanishes from his mind along with all other thoughts as realization washes over him in an instant, and his hands and the rest of him go still.

She's looking directly into his deep brown eyes when he opens them, and the breath she'd been holding releases, ironically, in the moment she recognizes that he has stilled beneath her. Her fingers lightly trace his full mouth, and her thumb trails along his bottom lip before skimming across his chin, settling at the hollow of his throat. There's a question in her eyes as she sighs his name. "Luis."

Without an answering word, Luis lifts his hand and trails the back of it across her forehead, drifting to the sweet space where her neck meets her shoulder. Unexpected relief washes over him, and his fingers tangle in the sweat dampened hair at the nape of her neck as he stares up at her, unable to break the intense hold her eyes seem to have on his.

They stare at each other, frozen in uncertainty, until Sheridan makes the first move.

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She kisses him.

Luis doesn't respond. Not at first. But then he remembers. He remembers her falling and his frantic search for her. He remembers the inexplicable panic he felt when she wouldn't breathe for him and that moment when those blue eyes opened. He remembers her dreams and the hurt in her voice and the unfulfilled hope, and he remembers how he wanted to believe her, still wants to believe her, and the relief he couldn't deny. He remembers and he pulls her back to him just as she starts to pull away.

Her mouth opens, welcomes him, and the hand at the hollow of his throat slides to the back of his neck, tangling in his hair. She gives and he takes, and the hand that had lain dormant against the small of her back awakens, pulling her closer until not an inch separates them.

She's all curves and warm satin skin against him, and Luis groans into her mouth when she straddles his thighs, leaning down in to him, the full frontal contact almost unbearable in its pleasure. Some distant part of his brain is screaming at him that this isn't right, this isn't honorable, hell, she's a Crane, but the rest of him is intent on following this through. The rest of him admits this is something he's wanted from day one from her, something they've both wanted. He stops thinking and simply feels. Grasping her hips, he rolls them both over and captures her hands, pressing them into the pillow at her head. He doesn't know about the great love of her life, but he knows that right now, he wants her more than anything he's ever wanted before, if she'll have him.

Sheridan smiles and arches beneath him, inviting his kiss.

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She's combing her fingers through his dark hair, her nails tickling soothingly across his scalp. The air in the cabin is still cold, but she doesn't pay it much notice because Luis is draped across her much like the blanket, now tangled hopelessly around his waist, was earlier.

Luis listens to her heartbeart, steady and strong beneath her ribcage, and his breath escapes his mouth in warm puffs against her cooling naked skin. His logical mind is whirling over the reality he holds in his hands while the barely hours old memories flash behind his eyes—the passion, the battle for the upper hand had been nothing less than he'd expected. It had been the hint of sweetness, the intensity that had rendered him as he was now—speechless. He's pulled abruptly from his thoughts when she suddenly stiffens beneath him, her hand going still.

"Luis," she whispers in a hiss. "I think there's someone outside."

Instantly on alert, Luis lifts his head from her breast, and quickly covering her with the blanket, slips out of the bed, pulling on his jeans and creeping along the cabin's wall with a finger to his lips, motioning to her to keep quiet.

Blue eyes wide, Sheridan nods and holds her breath as the doorknob rattles. A scream freezes in her throat when the door opens and all she sees in the ensuing minutes is a blur of movement as Luis takes off after the man he believes to be his father, the man she prays is Martin Fitzgerald, because if he's not, she and Luis don't stand much of a chance, and the odds are already stacked against them. She scrambles from the bed and rushes to the open door, blankets tucked beneath her arms. And, into the void Luis disappeared, she shouts his name.

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**So...that's that. **

**:D **

**What about your own road not taken? **

**Tell me about it and what you thought about this story. **

**Once upon a time, I had thoughts of making this a continuing thread elsewhere (the idea never seemed to gain legs), adding others stories along the way, mine and whoever else wanted to join in on the fun. **

**Maybe I still can? **

**Feedback is loved and adored. **

**Thanks so much for reading!**


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